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Friday, 10 June 2011

I'll be honest, I have never liked Ed Balls. I used to struggle to put it into words but he has always come across as slimy and disingenuous. For me, previous claims he has made about his innocence regarding any role he might have had in trying to oust Tony Blair did not ring true.

And he has kept up the denials through thick and thin. When Andrew Rawnsley published his book last year "The End of the Party" which went into great detail about Brown's various alleged plots and Balls' role in them I remember categorical denunciations from Balls on the media. Not only that but Rawnsley himself and his reputation was traduced by various Labour figures and especially a lot of the more partisan activists on Twitter.

But isn't it funny how the more the concrete evidence comes to light, the more the sort of picture that Rawnsley was painting becomes ever more clearly true?

The Telegraph has today published details of letters that apparently are from a box that was supposed to go to Balls but has ended up in their hands. They include correspondence between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair from 2005 and 2006 with content and handwritten annotations that make it completely clear that not only was Brown actively plotting to overthrow Blair from at least 2005, but that Balls was up to his neck in the scheming too.

The Labour Party should reflect on this and consider whether they really want someone who is happy to go onto the media and say things that are blatantly untrue in such an important position as the Treasury brief. Not to mention how someone who has been so disloyal in the past will now struggle to inspire loyalty in other colleagues.

The Labour Westminster Village may have known what he had been up to and have been largely willing to overlook it but there is now a smoking gun so the rest of us can see the truth of the matter too.

For that reason I now suspect that any residual future leadership ambitions for Mr Balls have bitten the dust. He is far too compromised by his past.

Here is a 6 minute clip from This Week during the Labour leadership campaign last year where Balls repeatedly denies what there is now written evidence to demonstrate:

1 comment:

I've started my own ("The Unsolved Mysteries Of Frank Cannon") and done a bit about our "friend" Ed.I've gone ahead , with no knowledge of copyright (doh!) and have used the image on your website as its the most unflattering I could find. I hope you will give your permission, but any probs and I will remove it.My apologiesFrank